With increased network usage, there is a need to improve the security of communications between clients and servers in a networked setting such as the Internet. Authentication protocols, which tend to prove that a communication came from whom it was stated to have originated, provide an important aspect of security.
Certain authentication protocols provide server authentication (by which a server is authenticated to a client). Some embodiments of security systems that provide server authentication allow for the server to interface with a domain controller (DC) that can present evidence to the DC of an authentication request by using a non-delegable credential (such as a certificate). Even if such server authentication results, these non-delegable credentials are not used to authenticate another server to the same client. In networked configurations, a series of servers often are used to access desired data for the client. For example, a web server may access a Structured Query Language (SQL) database data contained in an SQL server, documents contained in a file server, or other data contained in another server. Using non-delegable credentials, each successive server has to be authenticated if it is desired to maintain channels between the client and each successively accessed server.